Meta ends third-party fact checking
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The social media giant Meta is ending third-party fact checking of Facebook and its other platforms, relying instead on a community notes system. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said recent elections felt like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising free speech, arguing that fact checkers were too politically biased. We hear two views of the change.
Also in the programme: Donald Trump refuses to rule out economic - or military - intervention to gain control of the Panama Canal - and Greenland - what do the locals think about that? And we hear from a mountaineer on Mount Everest about what it was like when the earthquake hit.
(IMAGE: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 25, 2024 / CREDIT: Reuters/Manuel Orbegozo)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour live from the BBC World Service in London. |
| 0:07.9 | I'm Rebecca Kesbby. |
| 0:09.9 | Social media has become a fundamental part of politics. |
| 0:13.9 | What once used to be discussed mainly on the floors of Parliament buildings, |
| 0:18.2 | perhaps in a broadcast interview, is now posted online in seconds, |
| 0:23.1 | politicians engaging directly with their electorates. |
| 0:26.9 | It's launched movements, trends and beliefs across the world, but it's also regularly blamed |
| 0:32.3 | for spreading falsehoods, unsubstantiated rumour, hate speech and dangerous lies. |
| 0:38.5 | Major social media platforms have become very powerful, as have their owners. |
| 0:43.4 | Ex-owner Elon Musk now photographed next to President-elect Trump |
| 0:47.4 | more times it seems than his vice-president-elect or even his wife. |
| 0:52.3 | Today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced some changes to Facebook |
| 0:56.7 | and other meta platforms such as Instagram, moving away from using third-party fact-checkers |
| 1:02.9 | towards a community note system, also used by X, which relies on users themselves to monitor |
| 1:09.3 | inaccurate or false posts. |
| 1:11.8 | In making the announcement, he accused the fact-checkers of being politically biased. |
| 1:16.9 | First, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S. |
| 1:24.4 | After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation |
| 1:30.7 | was a threat to democracy. |
| 1:32.8 | We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. |
| 1:37.8 | But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust |
| 1:42.3 | than they've created, especially in the U.S. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.